1170 Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket

St. Francis of Assisi, O.F.M.

1223 Pope Honorius III formally approved the Franciscan religious order. Properly called the Order of the Friars Minor, this Roman Catholic order was founded in 1209 by St. Francis of Assisi.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Friars_Minor

Constitution fires a 17-gun salute near U.S. Coast Guard Base Boston during the ship's Independence Day underway demonstration in Boston Harbor.1812 The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three hour battle.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution

1845 In accordance with International Boundary delimitation, United States annexes the Republic of Texas, following the manifest destiny doctrine. The Republic of Texas, which had been independent since the Texas Revolution of 1836, is thereupon admitted as the 28th U.S. state.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas

1930 Sir Muhammad IqbaL's presidential address in Allahabad introduces the Two nation theory and outlines a vision for the creation of Pakistanen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Iqbal\en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan#Independence_and_modern_Pakistan

1932 Allen Yuan Converted, Thanks to Prayer. "I will never forget December 29, 1932," wrote Allen Yuan. A Chinese student, he attended classes at the YMCA in Beijing. His father wanted him to learn English. Allen did not want to learn English or to believe in Christianity, both of which he detested as foreign intrusions. He had already rejected China's two major religions: Buddhism, which he felt had no answers for the present and Confucianism which he felt had no answers for the future.

"I could not believe in God as I couldn't see Him or touch Him." All of that changed on this day, December 29, 1932. Eighteen year old Allen was alone in his room finishing up his homework about 9:30 at night. Two Christian teachers had been praying for him. "I cannot describe to you exactly how or why. But God revealed Himself into my heart at that moment and gave me the faith to believe in Him. There I turned off the kerosene lights as it was the days before electricity. I knelt on the ground with my hands holding onto my chair. There I confessed my sins and accepted Jesus as my personal savior. When I turned the light back on, the universe had changed for me. I was very, very happy. The next day I told all my friends about my born-again experience."

That would be Allen's practice from then on. Filled with the Holy Spirit after a godly Mr. Tsui laid hands on him in a Pentecostal service, he entered Bible school. He became a zealous evangelist and founded a church. Like the Salvation Army, he conducted street meetings.

When the Communists took control of China, they sought to control its religious life. They banned street meetings. All churches were ordered to join the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. (Self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating.)

Allen and ten other ministers in Beijing refused to join for three reasons. They had been independent from the start, dependent on no foreign aid. They did not believe it right to yoke themselves with the unbelievers who would enter the Three-Self movement and they believed in separation of the church and state. Because of this refusal, Allen was sentenced to life in prison at the age of forty-four. He spent twenty-two years behind bars, separated from his wife and six children. His family suffered cruelly.

Working nine hours a day, Allen sang hymns on his midday break. "I found the Chinese version of the 'Old Rugged Cross' better than the English version. In Chinese it tells us to be faithful servants and to follow the cross, which was what I wanted to do."

Chinese policy changed. Because of prison overcrowding, the government decided to release Christian leaders who had spent two decades in jail. Allen was paroled and told he must not preach. But he continued to spread the gospel from his own home. He taped sermons and distributed them. He was still working for Christ in his late eighties. "As we live each day, we want to work for Him [Jesus] until He returns, as we know He is coming soon. If He comes today, I am fully prepared, as everybody must give an account."www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/allen-yuan-converted-thanks-to-prayer-11630753.html

1934 Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty,_1922en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Naval_Treaty

1938 In Tambaram, South India, the second world meeting of the International Missionary Council closed at Madras Christian College (having opened Dec. 12th). It was afterward called the IMC's Tambaram Conference. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madras_Christian_College#Tambaram_Conference_1938

United States Army Air Forces Consolidated B-24D Liberator over Maxwell Field, Alabama.1939 First flight of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and a small number of early models were sold under the name LB-30, for Land Bomber. The B-24 was used in World War II by several Allied air forces and navies, and by every branch of the American armed forces during the war, attaining a distinguished war record with its operations in the Western European, Pacific, Mediterranean, and China-Burma-India Theaters.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_B-24_Liberator

"St Paul's Survives", photgraph taken by Herbert Mason on December 29, 1940 of St Paul's during The Blitz1940 World War II: In the Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe fire-bombs London, England, UK, killing almost 200 civilians.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Fire_of_London

1949 KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC2XAK

1959 Physicist Richard Feynman gives a speech entitled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", which is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

1998 Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over 1 million lives.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodiaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

2001 A fire at the Mesa Redonda shopping center in Lima, Peru, kills at least 291.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Redonda_fire

2003 The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkala_Sami_language

2006 UK settles its Anglo-American loan - post WWII loan debt.

Births

765 Ali Al-Ridha, Saudi Arabian 8th of the Twelve Imams, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and the eighth Shia Imam after his father Musa al-Kadhim and before his son Muhammad al-Jawad; and was an Imam of knowledge according to the Zaydi (Fiver) Shia school and Sufis. He lived in a period when Abbasid caliphs were facing numerous difficulties, the most important of which was Shia revolts. The Caliph Al-Ma'mun thought out a remedy for this problem by appointing Al-Ridha as his successor, through whom he could involve the Imam in worldly affairs. However, according to the Shia view, when Al-Ma'mun saw that the Imam gained even more popularity, he decided to correct his mistake by poisoning him. The Imam was buried in a village in Khorasan, which afterwards gained its new name, Mashhad, meaning the place of martyrdom (d. 818)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_al-Ridha

1709 Elizabeth of Russia Empress of Russia from 1741 until her death. She led the country into the two major European conflicts of her time: the War of Austrian Succession (1740–48) and the Seven Years' War (1756–63). On the eve of her death, Russia spanned almost 6,250,000 square miles (16,200,000 km2). (d. 1762)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_Russia

1721 Madame de Pompadour, French mistress of Louis XV of France. She took charge of the king’s schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and supporters. She was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska. She was a major patron of architecture and decorative arts such as porcelain. She was a patron of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire. Hostile critics at the time generally tarred her as a malevolent political influence, but historians are more favorable, emphasizing her successes as a patron of the arts and a champion of French pride (d. 1764)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_de_Pompadour

1800 Charles Goodyear, American inventor. American self-taught chemist and manufacturing engineer who developed vulcanized rubber, for which he received patent number 3633 from the United States Patent Office on June 15, 1844 (d. 1860)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear

1808 Andrew Johnson, American politician, 17th President of the United States. Johnson became president as he was vice president at the time of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. The first American president to be impeached, he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. (d. 1875)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson

1809 William Ewart Gladstone, British Liberal politician. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times (1868–74, 1880–85, February–July 1886 and 1892–94), more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 when he resigned for the last time. He had also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times. (d. 1898)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone

1877 Max Hess, American gymnast and track and field athlete who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. (d. 1969)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Hess_(gymnast)

1879 Billy Mitchell, American general who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force (d. 1936)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell

1881 Scott Leary, American freestyle swimmer who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. He won a silver medal in the 50-yard freestyle and a bronze medal in the 100-yard freestyle. (d. 1958)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Leary

1881 Jess Willard, American boxer, world heavyweight boxing champion known as the Pottawatomie Giant who knocked out Jack Johnson in April 1915 for the heavyweight title. He was known for his great strength and ability to absorb tremendous punishment, although today he is also known for his title loss to Jack Dempsey (d. 1968)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_Willard

1910 Ronald Coase, English-American economist, Nobel Prize laureate. He was for much of his life the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School, where he arrived in 1964 and remained for the rest of his life. After studying with the University of London External Programme in 1927–29, Coase entered the London School of Economics, where he took courses with Arnold Plant. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991. (d. 2013)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Coase

1915 Bill Osmanski, American football player (d. 1996)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Osmanski

1915 Robert Ruark, American author and big game hunter (d. 1965)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ruark

1917 Tom Bradley, American politician, 38th Mayor of Los Angeles, serving from 1973 to 1993. He was the only African-American mayor of that city, and his 20 years in office mark the longest tenure by any mayor in the city's history. His 1973 election made him the second African-American mayor of a major U.S. city. Bradley retired in 1993, after his approval ratings began dropping subsequent to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Bradley unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California in 1982 and 1986 and was defeated each time by the Republican George Deukmejian. The racial dynamics that appeared to underlie his narrow and unexpected loss in 1982 gave rise to the political term "the Bradley effect." In 1985, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. (d. 1998)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bradley_(American_politician)

1876 Philip P. Bliss, 38, Popular American hymnwriter. On this day, shortly after 7 p.m., a train pulling out of Ashtabula, Ohio puffed its way across a trestle. Suddenly the passengers heard a terrible cracking sound. The trestle snapped and eleven rail cars plunged seventy feet down into a watery ravine. Even before the wooden cars slammed into the bottom, they were aflame, set afire by kerosene heaters. Of the 159 passengers in those cars, 92 were killed and most of the rest suffered serious injuries. Snuffed out by the wreck was a young couple whose bodies were never found. But you will almost certainly find the man's name in the hymnbook in the pew in front of you. It was Philip Paul Bliss.

Bliss had a superb voice. One day he attended one of Dwight L. Moody's revival services. The song leader was absent and the music was weak. Bliss's voice stood out in the congregational singing. As the crowd was leaving, Moody shook hands, including the Blisses'. Bliss said, "as I came to him he had my name and history in about two minutes, and a promise that when I was in Chicago Sunday evenings, I would come and help in the singing at the theater meetings."

Bliss had already written Christian songs. As part of the Moody team, he now wrote even more. Among the familiar hymns he authored were "Almost Persuaded," "Hallelujah! What a Savior!" and "Jesus Loves Even Me." He also wrote the music to "It Is Well with My Soul."

Ironically, the night before his death, P.P. Bliss had sung "I'm going home tomorrow" while he spent "the happiest Christmas he had ever known" with family. Philip and Lucy left their children with a sister and set off on their doomed journey. Had the children been with them, the disaster would have been worse.

Moody was among those who mourned the loss of Bliss. "In my estimate, he was the most highly honored of God, of any man of his time, as a writer and singer of Gospel Songs, and with all his gifts he was the most humble man I ever knew. I loved him as a brother, and shall cherish his memory...." Moody arranged for school children to donate pennies to erect a monument to Bliss in Rome, Pennsylvania, the singer's hometown.

After Bliss's death, those who opened his surviving luggage found words of a new song he had written. James McGranahan set this to music and it remains another favorite of the remarkable songwriter:

1980 John R. Rice (b. 11 December 1895), American Baptist evangelist and pastor and the founding editor of The Sword of the Lord, an influential fundamentalist newspaper.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Rice

1986 Harold Macmillan, English captain and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)

Martyrs Dominic, Victor, Primian, Lybosus, Saturninus, Crescentius, Secundus and Honoratus, martyrs in North Africa.Saint Albert of Gambron, a courtier who became a hermit, later founding the small monastery of Gambron-sur-l'Authion in France (7th century)

Saint Ebrulfus (Evroult), Abbot, born in Bayeux, became a monk at the monastery of Deux-Jumeaux, later founding a monastery at Pays d'Ouche in Normany, and other smaller monasteries (596)

Saint Girald (Girard, Giraud), a monk at Lagny in France, later Abbot of Saint-Arnoul; he became Abbot of Fontenelle Abbey, where he was murdered (1031)

Post-Schism Orthodox Saints

Saint Mark the Grave-digger, of the Kiev Caves (11th century)

Saints Theophilus and John, of the Kiev Caves (11th-12th century)

Saint Theophilus, Abbot, of Luga and Omutch (Pskov) (1412), disciple of St. Arsenius of Konevits.